Whirly Windmills finished

Happy to report a small-ish finish this week.  I quilted and bound the Whirly Windmills baby/toddler quilt I showed you here.



It finished at 45" square, so quite a good size for a growing child to enjoy.  Size was determined by how many blocks I could make from two Charm packs - I had not one scrap left over.  In fact the sharp eyed among you may have spotted that one of the blocks (top left in the pic above) has four patches in the corners.  This is because I initially planned to make a different block with this collection, but after making a sample I changed my mind.  So cobbling together the four patches from the pieces I had already cut was the only way I could complete my sixteenth windmill block.

This is a lovely easy pattern for beginner quilters (especially if you decide to skip the cornerstone pinwheels) as the only place your points have to meet is in the middle of the block.  Whilst this is quite an important place, it does help to only have one place per block to really have to get it right!

The sashing happened because the quilt was just too busy with the blocks placed edge to edge.  I guess if I had chosen a calmer background fabric I could have made more blocks with the Charm squares and then would have got a secondary windmill pattern where the blocks butted up to one another.  Oh well, maybe in the next version?

Plus I wanted to use the bonus triangles I made from the stitch and flip corner cut-offs, and sashing cornerstones was one way to do it.  See, I said I used every scrap!

Sashing width was determined by the size of the pinwheels which I trimmed to 3", and I think I bought a metre of fabric for the sashing (I had a bit left over which I added to the backing fabric to get the right width).

The backing is hard to see on the photo but it is white with a light blue swirly design (Basically Hugs by Helen Stubbings for Red Rooster Fabrics) which I feel is in keeping with the idea of windmills whirling in the wind.









The quilting is pretty straightforward; I chose to use the structure of the quilt to define my quilting lines, rather than an allover evenly spaced grid.  So I first quilted in the ditch along the sashing lines, then through the middle of the sashing which bisects the cornerstone pinwheels.  Then I quilted through the diagonal of the large pinwheels in the centres of the blocks.  Finally, I felt I needed to do a little more so that the amount of quilting would be fairly consistent across the quilt: I added quilting lines vertically and horizontally through the blocks.  Although the spacing is irregular it is not random and it gives a great texture on the back as well as the front.

 Binding is a skinny orange stripe, cut 2" doublefold for a nice narrow edge.  Just lifts the slightly chilly blue/white.

Don't you love a rolled quilt?  Linking to Crazy Mom Quilts here for Finish it up Friday.